This invention relates generally to the production of hydrogen and oxygen in a closed electrolytic chamber, filled with an aqueous electrolyte solution, and working with electrodes connected to a source of electrical potential. The invention is useful in automobiles, trucks, stationary engines, tractors, industrial plants, trains, ships, airplanes, generating plants, and all other places where fossil fuel is burned as a source of energy. The invention will be described herein with specific reference to its use in an automobile engine.
At the present time there are two major problems facing the nation with respect to the operation of the millions of automobiles, trucks, buses, and the like which are currently in use. One of these problems is the pollution of the atmosphere caused by the noxious gases generated as by-products of combustion in the engines of these vehicles. A few of these are defined as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxide (NO.sub.x), unburned hydrocarbons (HC), sulfur dioxide (SO.sub.2), and so on. During the past 20 years, considerable effort and expense have been devoted to resolving this ever growing problem.
The second problem deals with an increasing shortage of the fossil fuels on which vehicles operate, and a very substantial amount of work has been done with the objective of increasing the efficiency of existing engines so as to use less fuel, as well as searching for alternative sources of energy for the vehicles.
It has been recognized for some time that hydrogen as a fuel has numerous advantages over fossil fuels. In burning, it releases heat energy almost three times greater than any other fuel. It burns clean, producing only water as residue. It can be made from water almost any place on earth by several processes, one of the most convenient being by electrolysis of water. However, the 100% substitution of hydrogen for gasoline or other fossil fuels in vehicle engines presents practical problems which have delayed commercial acceptance. A hydrogen tank is an explosion hazard. Also, the energy required to convert water to hydrogen in itself requires the burning of fossil or other fuels, with accompanying reduction in existing fuel supplies and accompanying increase in pollution or other hazards.
As an extension of the above concept, there has been additional research in the prior art to evaluate the practical utility of hydrogen as a fuel supplement in existing systems. It has been found that when hydrogen is mixed with gasoline and air in the combustion chamber of a conventional vehicle engine, there is an improved combustion. The result is substantially improved thermal efficiency and a marked reduction of noxious emissions.
However, to provide a tank of hydrogen adjacent the engine to supplement the gasoline supply presents the same difficulties as involved with hydrogen as a primary fuel, except of course on a smaller scale. Therefore, over the past decades there has been additional work on the concept of providing an electrolysis chamber under the hood of the vehicle, adjacent the engine, for providing hydrogen on an as needed basis, and using electrical energy from the battery and electrical system of the vehicle to perform the electrolysis. While this work has confirmed certain theoretical advantages of hydrogen supplementation, it has not yielded a practical, workable system, since the technology has been known for some time but has not come into common use.
The lack of public acceptance has been due to the fact that the systems proposed in the past have been characterized by excessively heavy and oversized units, the use of high pressure, the need for heating, cooling, fanning, purging, or filtering, the use of heavy cabling and precious metal electrodes, and the need for extensive modifications of the existing vehicle engine. Even more important, there has been the safety hazard presented by the potential for explosion of accumulated gases in the event of unusual occurrences, such as collision of the vehicle or inadvertent turning off of the engine while the generation of hydrogen and oxygen still continues.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved hydrogen supplementation system which overcomes or minimizes the above-mentioned disadvantages of previously known systems.
More specifically, it is an object to utilize the existing source of electrical potential in the engine to decompose water to provide hydrogen and oxygen which is used in the engine, thereby greatly reducing air pollution and increasing fuel efficiency.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a system which is inexpensive, readily installed and maintained, without modification of the existing engine, and which includes simple mechanisms for eliminating the hazard of explosion.
Other objects and advantages will become apparent as this specification proceeds.